Casting Spells with High School Students at Summer Workshop

Last month, IME professor Dr. Sam Ramrattan hosted a weeklong metal-casting workshop for nine high school students from areas around Detroit, Ann Arbor, and Saginaw, Michigan; Cleveland, Parma, and Defiance, Ohio; and Windsor, Ontario. He has been offering the annual hands-on workshops for up to 15 area tenth-through-twelfth-grade students for the last eight summers.

Dr. Sam Ramrattan (right) and Adil Abdelwahab (second from right in back), an IME graduate student, pose with nine high school students who attended the 2007 summer metal casting short course at WMU

During the students’ five-day campus visit, Ramrattan, a technical advisor to the American Foundrymen's Society and a Key Professor for the Foundry Educational Foundation, directs activities in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Parkview Campus Metal Casting Laboratory.

Workshop topics include metal casting history, trends, and the relationship of manufacturing (molding, melting, filling, and finishing), engineering, quality, purchasing, marketing, and sales of castings. The students explore the use of computers, math, and science in metal casting.

In addition to their lab and course work, the students meet with WMU administrators to discuss university entrance requirements and expectations and with professionals from the foundry industry to review career opportunities in metal casting.

Field trips to metal casting industries provide students with opportunities to see real-world technology and to meet with professionals. This year’s attendees toured Metal Technologies’ Three Rivers Gray Iron Plant, and Contech’s die casting facilities in Dowagiac, MI. They also enjoyed activities in the Kalamazoo / Portage metro area.

Students who attend the program are sponsored by various chapters of the American Foundry Society (AFS) and the North American Die Casting Association (NADCA). Students are selected on the basis of an aptitude for math and science. There is no cost to the students, who stay in WMU dorms and enjoy campus life.

Dr. Sam Ramrattan supervises as two students pour molten aluminum into sand molds that they had prepared. Other high school students, seated behind the protective barrier, took turns donning safety apparel and making their own sand castings.

WMU has had a casting metal program in various engineering curricula since the college opened over 100 years ago. Its most recent accreditation began in 1992 when Ramrattan joined the faculty. It is currently an option in all IME undergraduate programs. “Our goal is to produce hands-on engineers as an integral part of what we do in manufacturing engineering programs,” he said.

Saginaw high school students Steve Trombley (left) and Rollin Carter prepare a sand mold that they will use to create sand castings from molten aluminum.

Ramrattan specializes in material and process improvement emphasizing casting and non-traditional manufacturing processes. For more information, contact him at sam.ramrattan@wmich.edu

ANTEC Offers Fun and Futuristic Visions of the World of Plastic

Five members of WMU’s student chapter of the Society of Plastics Engineering (SPE) attended the society’s Annual Technical Conference (ANTEC) in Cincinnati, OH, in May. WMU Engineering Graphics and Design Technology (EGR) seniors Josh Leyrer, Jim Gabriel, Courtney Rawlings, Lauren Lambert, and Jim Vlieg were accompanied by IME Department Chair Paul Engelmann and Jay Shoemaker, IME adjunct professor and Moldflow, Inc., employee.

ANTEC, the world’s largest plastics conference, included four days of technical presentations covering all concentrations of the plastics engineering field. “I’m really interested in plastics, and this conference was THE conference for plastics,” Lambert said. “We learned about plastics from many perspectives.”

Presentation topics included process optimization methods, overcoating improvements, bioplastics, shear-thickening fluids, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and nanotechnology. Presenters included university professors, research and industrial professionals from all over the world.

Vlieg enjoyed the “especially interesting” presentation on bioplastics. “With oil prices rising, plastics derived from other sources could be the future of the industry,” he said. Lambert was “wowed” by the presentation on nanocomposities. “I would really like to learn more about them and their potential,” she said.

 

Five WMU students attended ANTEC student activities night, which included two hours of games. At right, WMU students (from left) Jim Gabriel, Jim Vlieg and Lauren Lambert. enjoy virtual bowling. “We had two hours of any game we wanted to play,” Lambert said. In addition Gabriel won a pair of Oakley sunglasses in a raffle.

Students learned about the latest technologies and developments in plastics at Plastics Encounter, an exhibition set up by plastics companies.

 

WMU SPE group enjoy an ANTEC networking social. From left, clockwise: Dr. Paul Engelmann, Lauren Lambert, Josh Leyrer, Jay Shoemaker, Courtney Rawlings, Jim Vlieg, and Jim Gabriel.

 

Evenings included several social events. Formal and informal socials gave the students and professors opportunities to form networking connections with others in the industry. One evening also included a Moldflow-sponsored student activities night at a local gaming center.

Students were selected for the trip based on individual application essays. They wrote formal proposals for travel support to the conference as well as trip reports on their ANTEC activities and professional development upon their return.

"I'm glad that I was given the opportunity to go to this event to further my learning in the plastics field," Rawlings said.

The trip was sponsored in full by a grant for support of lifelong learning and supplied to the school by the Alcoa Foundation, through EPC/Alcoa in Mattawan. The grant supports the professional development and global awareness of students in engineering technology programs.

Dr. Betsy Aller, IME associate professor, is principal investigator of the grant.